billion

(bĭl'yən)
n.

1. The cardinal number equal to 10⁹.
2. Chiefly British. The cardinal number equal to 10¹².
3. An indefinitely large number.

[French, a million million : blend of bi-, second power; see bi-¹ and MILLION.]

billion bil'lion adj.

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now means 'a thousand million' in British English as it always has in American English, and its old British English meaning of 'a million million' has been superseded. In more idiomatic uses (as in I've told you a billion times) there is no precise meaning. When preceded by a numeral, the plural is billion (unchanged: three billion people), but billions is used when it is followed by of (billions of people).

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[Etymology: Lat: ‘two’] Symbol bn. Often used to mean a huge number, but specifically defined traditionally as:
North America = 1 000 million = (1 000)² thousand, = 10^(3×2)+3 = 10⁹.
UK = 1 000 000 million = (million)², = 10^6×2 = 10¹².The index value 2 following the bracket in each is the respective etymological factor. The billion is clearly ambiguous and confusing in the intercontinental context, so should be avoided. However, the escalation of so many countable entities, from money to humans, makes such large terms of growing appropriateness. The increasingly pervasive use of the American form (despite the 9th CGPM in 1948 recommending the extant British/European form
[Nature Vol. 163, 427-8 (1949)]) has displaced the traditional British form even in the UK. With this trend, the term has surviving value; however, such terms are yielding in either sense to expressions formed from the prefixes of the SI system (e.g. ‘megabucks’), that for 10⁹ being giga (G-). Use of billion in a scientific context is undesirable. See thousand for general discussion.

One thousand millions, or 1 followed by nine zeros (10 to the 9th power). In long scale usage, billion refers to a million millions, or 1 followed by 12 zeros (10 to the 12th power). See space/time and long scale.

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IN BRIEF: A thousand million (1,000,000,000).

There are more than one billion stars in the galaxy.

Tutor's tip: A "billion" is a thousand million in the United States or a million times million in Great Britain. "Bouillon" is a clear soup, while "bullion" is uncoined gold or silver.

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sign description: The fingertips of the hand hits the palm of the opposite hand three times.

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For a list of words related to billion, see:

• Quantities, Relationships, and Operations - billion: one thousand million

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See words rhyming with "billion."

  See crossword solutions for the clue Billion.

Dansk (Danish)
num. - milliard
n. - milliard

Nederlands (Dutch)
miljard, biljoen

Français (French)
n. - milliard
adj. - milliard

Deutsch (German)
n. - Milliarde, (Brit.) Billion
adj. - Milliarden-, Billionen-

Ελληνική (Greek)
n., -
adj. - δισεκατομμύριο

Italiano (Italian)
miliardo

Português (Portuguese)
n. - bilhão (m) (EUA), trilhão (m) (Ingl.)

Русский (Russian)
миллиард

Español (Spanish)
n. - mil millones, billón
adj. - mil millones, de mil millones

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - miljard
adj. - miljard-

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
十亿

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
num. - 十億
n. - 十億

한국어 (Korean)
num. - 10억, 조
n. - 무수히 많음

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 10億

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) بليون, مليار, ألف مليون (صفه) ملياري‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮מיליארד, ביליון, מספר גדול מאד (מדוברת)‬

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